23 April 2012: The Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF), the biodiversity working group of the Arctic Council, released three new reports on Arctic biodiversity during a conference on the “International Polar Year 2012: From Knowledge to Action.” The reports highlight findings from the latest analysis of the Arctic Species Trend Index (ASTI), which describes trends across species, taxonomy, ecosystems, regions and other categories.

The report titled “The Arctic Species Trend Index 2011: Key findings” provides an update on the index overall, explores the data sets using spatial analysis techniques, and provides a more in-depth examination of the data sets for marine vertebrates.

The report titled “The Arctic Species Trend Index 2011: Tracking trends in Arctic marine populations” presents an update of the index first reported on in 2010, and highlights the increase in average species population abundance in the Arctic between 1970 and 2007. The report notes, however, that this pattern is not consistent among regions, as vertebrate abundance has increased on average in the low Arctic but not in the high Arctic and sub Arctic.

The report titled “The Arctic Species Trend Index 2011: Tracking trends in Arctic vertebrate populations through space and time” builds on “The Arctic Species Trend Index 2010: Tracking trends in Arctic wildlife,” which provided the first general measure of trends in vertebrate populations at a pan-Arctic scale. It includes work carried out in 2011, consisting of a revision and updating of the ASTI data set, a closer look at the marine data sets, and an exploration of spatial biodiversity data analysis techniques using the ASTI data set. [CAFF Press Release] [Publication: The Arctic Species Trend Index 2011: Key Findings] [Publication: The Arctic Species Trend Index 2011: Tracking Trends in Arctic Marine Populations] [Publication: The Arctic Species Trend Index 2011: Tracking Trends in Arctic Vertebrate Populations through Space and Time]